How is one’s religious identity expressed by who they and how they understand themselves to be? It’s not an easy question to answer as it requires effort at honest self examination, and there’s a limit to what one can know about themself. Others see in us what we cannot see, and some things we keep well hidden. An understanding of how our religious identity is reflected in our lives requires honestly looking at how we see ourselves in relation to family, friends, social classes, the circles we associate with, and society as a whole. Paul in his letters and the author of the Letter to the Hebrews believed one’s religious identity as a Christian needed to mature and left readers uncertain about what that meant.
It’s one thing to declare our religious identity as Christian and another to demonstrate maturity in Christ as seen through the eyes of others. It raises questions about what maturity in Christ is. I think some characteristics of maturity are common to everyone seeking to be emotionally healthy. In a lecture I heard many years ago Dr. Karl Menninger stated that emotional maturity had several characteristics: the ability to recognize and deal with reality; the ability to accept change with a degree of ease; freedom from symptoms of toxic apprehension; an ability to be generous in giving and receiving; ability to relate to others in mutually satisfactory ways; ability to sublimate passions and emotions to moral judgment; curiosity with a capacity to learn. No one is perfect in every measure. In that sense, maturity is a process requiring whatever capacity one has and a degree of unwavering intentionality.
No doubt it’s an incomplete list and each characteristic is subject to more examination, but you get the idea. If they are indicators of emotional maturity, I think they have to be included in any conversation about what it means to be mature in Christ, yet maturity in Christ is also something else.
Somehow it is to be more fully human by acknowledging absolute dependence on God, as we know God in Jesus Christ, thus freeing us from all dependence on society’s standards to tell us who we are and labeling us in the eyes of others. Confessing one’s dependency on God alone is the opposite of submitting to other humans or the demands of society in order to fit in. It is the opposite committing to an ideology or cause at the risk of losing one’s self. It is the opposite of claiming an independent autonomy that doesn’t exist. Admitting to dependency on God is to live into the source of life itself, into the realm of perfect love, and to become a more fully and free human. It is the key to becoming mature in Christ, and I think it has little to do with intellect or any other measure of status.
A curious example is a woman in her mid 40s who sits a few rows behind us in church. She has Downs Syndrome, and in childlike exuberance for God, Jesus and worship, she exhibits many of Dr. Menninger’s characteristics of emotional maturity to the extent she is able. I don’t want to romanticize it. She has limitations, but seems to show that intellect has little to do with being mature in Christ. Never to be a theologian, her recognition of dependency on Christ, and her unshakeable confidence in love for and from others frees her from all the demands of class, status, power, and self doubt that haunts the rest of us. I don’t have the freedom she has, and you probably don’t either. My education, intellect and life experiences make the world a far more complicated and dangerous place than the world she lives in, but perhaps we can learn from her. The biggest obstacle to overcome is the illusion that we can be independent, autonomous persons who value individualism over duty to the communities in which we live. American individualism and love of autonomy makes it hard to admit we are dependent creatures.
Humans are absolutely dependent on their elders for the first few years of life, and often on younger people at the end. Humans only slowly gain knowledge and skills needed to be “on our own” in ways that are never quite on our own. Wherever we go and whatever we do, we are always and everywhere dependent on others in ways that limit our freedom to act without restraint, accountability and consequences. There is no such thing as a “self made man.”
To be mature in Christ is to confess our dependence on Jesus as the one to whom we owe our highest loyalty. It doesn’t release us from the ordinary dependencies of human life, but it frees us to be more fully human as God intends us to be. So what are the marks of being mature in Christ? I think they have to include the characteristics described by Dr. Menninger, but there’s more. Because we are beloved by God we are free from being easily intimidated by usual expressions of power and authority. It means to respect the dignity of every human being, even those we don’t like or fear. It means to admit weakness and failure but not let it dictate who we are. It means that at all times and in every place it is possible to be an agent of the light of Christ, flickering though it might be. It means to take seriously the depth of meaning in the Ten Commandments, God’s intentions for social and economic justice, and to follow in the way of Love Jesus has commanded.
Following Paul’s admonition to the Romans, it is to live in harmony with others insofar as we are able. It is to live in full recognition that Jesus will be made known to others, for good or ill, by what we say and do. It is to be intentional as agents of healing, reconciliation and peace. It is to recognize that we are owners of nothing, only temporary stewards who must one day give an accounting of our stewardship. That’s a lot. No one is expected to be perfect in it. Nevertheless, they are marks of what it means to be mature in Christ, a maturity toward which we are to grow in the short time we have in this life.
© Steven E. Woolley